


Against All Odds

by anipug



Category: Deadpool (Comics), Deadpool - All Media Types, Marvel, Spider-Man (Comicverse), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Avengers politics, Big Boy Battle, Comicverse, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mystery, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Peter is moody, Protectiveness, Revenge, S.H.I.E.L.D? who let them in, Secret Identity, Violence, Why everyone want to hurt my lil baby, more tags later? maybe, oh wait i wrote it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-05
Updated: 2019-11-09
Packaged: 2019-11-12 05:16:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18004517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anipug/pseuds/anipug
Summary: "You don'y have to do this alone, Spidey.""I know."Where Spider man gets on a reporter's bad side, Peter Parker fights for his life, and Deadpool somehow becomes the only sane thing in Peter's world.





	1. Context

**Author's Note:**

> This is a multi-chapter fic with moderate to severe plot. Maybe 15 chapters? I'm a big comic nerd so I will be borrowing some plotlines from the comics. Peter is 24 in this fic and in grad school. He met the Avengers after he was an established super. I repeat: NOT MCU. If you don't follow the comics, you'll still understand the fic! Everything is explained! If you are like ??? about something, it is a mystery fic so we will all figure it out together.  
> 

High profile killing was definitely Deadpool’s MO. Naturally, he was originally on top of the police suspect list. But Spiderman knew Deadpool wouldn’t take on this kind of clientele, especially so quickly and in such a small area. And Deadpool had been convincing Spiderman he hadn’t taken a job in over a year, which was hard to believe, but he did finally join the Avengers so maybe... No, Deadpool was ruled out almost immediately.

“I was in Jersey,” he chimed (as much as his raspy voice could… ‘chime’). “'Everything is legal in New Jersey.'” He winked at peter and gave the chief detective, Stanley Carter, a fist bump before walking past the investigation team.

His story checked out, but Deadpool stayed a lot closer to the investigation after that. Peter thought maybe it just peaked his interest? However, Deadpool’s involvement DEFINITELY did not peak detective Stanley Carter’s interest.

“Can you get him out of here, Spiderman?! It’s bad enough we need one vigilante’s help.”

“Whoa calm down padre.” Deadpool grabbed the detective by the shoulders. “You think I’m a superhero like Spiderman?” Deadpool gave the detective a crushing hug, and then as lightning doth strike him, he recoiled as if he was in pain. "Wait... it just because we wear red hot tights--? Because I know my ass is hot but not that hot and when I say hot, I mean hot--” He clapped the detective on the back and lead his gaze to Biderman’s bouncy booty buns. Just as quickly, stepped in the detective’s gaze. “But just because we are both superheroes now doesn’t mean I wont put you through a wall if you start getting any ideas about that fine ass over there.”

The detective gulped and gaffawed, sputtering to find words.

[So we are superheroes now?]

(Like we could ever be superheroes. We have bloodied our talons too many times for our sins to be forgiven)

[Talons. Poetic but true.]

Spiderman spoke up, “Sorry, detective.” He kicked Deadpool across the room and into the rest of the donut boxes. “I’ll make sure he won’t compromise the investigation.” Peter slung Wade over his shoulder, Wade wheeing in delight, and walked him out of the station, slamming the larger body to the ground when Deadpool grazed the curve of Spiderman’s ass curiously, as if seeing it for the first time.

Over the next few weeks, the press was always hounding the police for information as the killings continued. The headlines read “Sin-Eater Strikes Again!” and “Spiderman Struggling to Save Our City!” which made it nearly impossible for Spiderman to go anywhere in the city without someone- the press and civilians alike- hounding him for new information. Of course the press goes wild with Spiderman as soon as Peter quits the Bugle and gets hired at Starktech. When Norman Osborn bought up the Bugle, Peter knew it was time to get the hell out of there. He had photographed a couple of headlines since the case started and sold them off anonymously (honestly just to make himself look better), but one reporter from the Daily Bugle’s opposing newspaper, _the Daily Globe_ , caught Spiderman taking a picture of the action and had a field day. 'Spiderman is only in it for the fans' this, 'he doesn’t care' that, 'how will this diva save us' yadda yadda yadda.

Hey, a guy’s gotta eat.

“Wow, Spiderdiva, huh. You look great in this selfie,” Deadpool pointed to a frontpage headline of an article from a week after the whole camera fiasco. They sat together on a tall building in Manhattan. “Love the angles.”

Peter just munched on his sandwich. It was almost noon, the sun perched high above them, lighing up the reflective buildings below. The crisp morning air was almost gone, but Peter had stayed up into the early morning, so he was mostly just wanting time to pass faster.

“So do you web your camera up to the building and set a timer or….?”

 _Yum, I love this sandwich!_ Peter thought, blocking out any and all sounds Deadpool was making. He didn’t even work for Jameson anymore! The extra cash was definitely not worth all this bullshit. _Yummy…. Mustard… This tastes like a literal subway station._

“Silent treatment huh? Is this because you have no leads and are afraid for more than just the city but also that the media will completely ruin your already fragile reputation if this case you are so heavily involved with but not legally accountable for goes unsolved for too long?”

_And because I will never escape the distrusting looks the citizens in this city will give me if I fail…. Mustard is bad._

Peter was silent.

“Or is it because your ass looks so good in these pictures?”

“Gah!” Peter shouted, exasperated. He stood up from his seat overlooking the city. “Deadpool, who the fuck invented mustard?!”

“I did.”

“I hate you.”

“Get in line.”

Peter hung his head, fist clenched around the wrapper of his sandwich. “I’m not scared of the media. I’m scared of the public having a reason to believe them.” Peter walked over to the glinting A/C unit and crouched in the slim sliver of shade. It was still summer, even as the fall air started seeping into the atmosphere, and the sun shone warm in the sky.

Deadpool walked over to his sullen friend, crouching next to him and pulling him in close. Spiderman tensed his shoulders.

“Who would have a reason to not believe in this ass, huh?”

And Peter laughed a bellowing laugh. Wade could see a wide smile with his mask still rolled up. 

"What's with all this ass talk huh?" Peter playfully punched Wade's shoulder.

"Why isn't everyine talking about it?"

"Shut up." Peter leaned his head on Deadpool’s shoulder, staring at the newspaper still being waved in front of his face. Deadpool pointed at the Bider Boody on the front page.

[spider boy is touching us]

{kill him}

[that might be the most adorable smile we have ever seen]

{cut his mouth off}

Nope, shant be doing that.

Deadpool had always had a fascination with the spider, even while the smaller man would throw him through a window anytime he got too close to Spidey’s missions. Peter, in turn had grown to enjoy the merc’s company. It was at least someone to banter with, and he found compfort in the larger man being around. There hadn’t been any super villains in a while, but Peter still felt a little safer with a one-man task force. Wade babbled on aimlessly until Spiderman’s head shot up, asking, “Hey, is this today’s paper?”

“Uhh… no it’s from… Yesterday,” the merc concluded, looking up from the date and back at Spiderman with his head tilted like a puppy’s.

“One second.” Peter pulled down his mask and flew down to the streets below. Wade whistled while he waited. He wondered if Wolverine would ever play the lead role in ‘Oklahoma!’. A man can dream.

Spidey yoinked back up right next to where Deadpool was teatering off the edge and shoved the paper in his face.

**Daily Globe**

**EXCULSIVE: _Sin-Eater Confesses to Reporters!_**   
**By Edward Brock**

So with all the fighting and coercing and stiff-arming the Daily Globe reporters did to keep their source a secret from police, the accused turns himself over willingly to the police. The only problem was, this man is a known compulsive confessor. Detective Carter would have been able to tell anyone that, except he was MIA at the time. Turns out, the Sin-Eater struck right when the ‘suspect’ turned himself in and finally was caught. After a bloody battle with Spiderman, the hero ripped off the Sin-Eater’s mask to reveal none other than: _Stanley Carter_ , NY’s finest lead detective.  
  
Now the press really had a feild day (and Peter got just the right angle for a photo op). The Daily Bugle’s headlines tore into the Daily Globe, (and with Peter’s amazing exclusive photos of the crime) they didn’t stand a chance. Peter quickly changed his mind about how worth it the pictures were.

The city finally quieted down about it a few months later, after an explosion at Oscorp. No more ‘Spiderman, our hero!’ or ‘Thanks for taking down another one of those crooked government workers, Spiderman.’ No, it was more, ‘The city is at it again,” and ‘Spiderman must be taking a day off, but crime isn’t sleepin’!’

Deadpool was actually out on a mission with the avengers then. Some hostage situation with a black hole thing? Peter didn’t know, but Mr. Stark seemed pretty paniced. Part of Peter hoped that if he was still with the Avengers, he would be out on that mission: using his brain, pushing his limits to save the world. But nope, now all he got to really sink his teeth into was crime wandering through his neighborhood streets. It was sad, really. As soon as Deadpool joined, Peter had to leave. He wished he had more time to go on real missions with him again. Maybe he could show off a little and finally get the Merc to stop bragging about how  _essential_ and  _awesome_ he was.

He swung through the night air and tasted the fuming air of Queens, puffy clouds of breath plooming out from behind his mask. The fight below times square with Elecro really did a number on him. _If only the prison system thought to maybe not put an electronic key on a dangerous criminal’s cell when their powers are guess what: Electricity._

Peter landed on a rooftop and plopped his ass on the ground. His ribs ached like hell. He lifted his shirt to assess the damage. Maybe a cracked rib if he was lucky, but being hit with a concrete beam and having the ceiling fall on you can have some… worse outcomes. Yeah, could have been worse. He layed back onto the cold landing, counting his breaths as he finally caught a break. The night sky was so beautiful, even with only a handful of stars. Peter thought about light pollution, and general pollution, and the environment, and Deadpool, and a new webshooter formula, and how blaackholes worked, and Deadpool, and countless other trains of thought until a figure shifted behind him. He bolted up, entire body protesting with muscle spasms and the general existence of nerves. Fuck nerves. The worst cell. 

A crack came from behind him.

“You, know if you are going to stalk someone it is nice to introduce yourself,” Peter barked. His spider sense still wasn’t going off. He lowered his stance. Nobody was there. Peter narrowed his eyes, marching over to where he caught the motion out the corner of his eye.

Beep Beep.

Peter stopped and looked at his watch.

“Oh fuck! My research paper!” he exclaimed, webbing off the roof and flying off into the night.

Lingering in the corner, a darkness rose from it’s hiding place in the shadows, growing and growing and growing until it is at least seven feet tall and wider than any being that existed on Earth. The form morphed, as if deciding what form to take, and finally settled on a towering humanoid figure. It’s long tongue curled out of it’s mouth as white markings resembling the city’s hero leaked into it's skin. There stood a nightmare. There stood

 _Venom_.


	2. Daddy Doom

The next time he felt himself caught off guard by that mysterious figure was during a cheap fight with some muggers a few days later. Typical damsel in distress scenario, nothing unusual. But after he strung them up, he saw that dark figure slither up to the roof. When he chased it up there, it was gone. Vanished. He swore he wasn’t just imagining things, but his spider sense would have told him if something was really there, so it just had to be him being paranoid. Maybe.

He was paranoid a lot lately, since a few months after he quit the avengers-- near the Sin Eater case. It soon became nightly, sometimes more than once a night. On patrol, he could sense a robbery half-way across town, but as soon as the night settled down… he felt something. It wasn’t his spider-sense: just natural intuition. Whatever _might_ have been there was gone as soon as it was appeared. If it even _was_ there.

School and work were pretty stressful; finals week was coming up; he finally put in his two weeks at the Globe to start a real job at Stark industries. Boy, was Johnan furious. That was a fun conversation.

Maybe it was just the night tricking his tired eyes…

 

\----------

 

Spiderman flung Dr. Doom’s Doombot high above him into the pillar of flame Johnny Storm was shooting. Peter swore if more of these robot dudes came after him, he was going to actually kill Dr. Doom. They were actually more like zombies than robots? It was all a weird syfy adventure at this point. He had arrived at the scene right before S.H.I.E.L.D Headquarters (Triskelion) was swamped with these little... guys. Shield agents were already there fighting off some of the bigger minions, and the Fantastic Four showed up a few minutes after.

“Agent Hill, and news on Fury?” Mr. Fantastic asked as he punched a minion behind his computer. Peter tried to get the EMP back online, but figured Dr. Richards would have an easier time with it. Honestly, the Doombots didn't look 100% robotic to Peter, but Dr. Richards assured him it had worked in the past.

“No word since last communication,” Hill responded, rolling out from behind a table as a missile exploded there, tossing everyone in the vicinity back.

Dr. Doom levitated high above what used to be the roof of the Triskelion (now it could maybe be a skylight?) and laughed as his minions kept coming one after another.

Peter spotted an army of flying (the could fly now he guessed) headed straight for the Human Torch and flung himself into the fray, webs flying in every direction, trying to trap most of the palm-sized robots. They kind of looked like if zombie bees were the size of kittens and had the ugly mug of Dr. (Daddy) Doom. (because Dr. Doom is their dad not because…) Johnny shook that thought from his head real quick as he watched his friend get cut up inside a swarm of Doombots. Doombees? Johnny couldn’t throw any attacks without setting his friend on fire, so watched as Spidey webbed Doombees left and right like his name was Net-Man.

[Net-Man. Good one Johnny]

Johnny Storm swore he saw a yellow comic box blur in and out of his vision as Spiderman made a fatal mistake, webbing a Doombee for leverage instead of the ceiling above.

“Oh no,” Peter deadpanned before plummeting down. Before he had time to reorient himself in the air, Susan swept the few remaining Doombots into the wall and put a force field around Spiderman.

“Mmmfhrmrm” Spiderman called from inside his bubble, giving a thumbs up. With a little smile, Susan diffused her shield.

“Thanks” Peter said, rubbing his temple.

“I figured,” she quipped, and Peter smiled, just before-  
“Look out!” he called and tackled Susan out of the way to narrowly avoid a missile coming straight at them.

The blow hit Susan and Peter pretty much head on, but only a good chunk of Peter’s suit was on fire, not all of it… so that was a plus. Susan narrowly caught them both in a force field to avoid the blow, but was quickly knocked unconscious.

Peter struggled to stand as his ears rang and his vision filled with red.

Peter heard Hill call “Triskelion tier one is compromised!” into her radio. “Severe structural damage to the west side. Control module A and power for upper division 1A to 14A has been compromised. Shield 8B is totaled…” She barked a few orders into the walkie talkie that Peter stopped trying to make out.

Peter wobbled up to see a gaping hole where they had been standing that opened into a fiery cavern of the lower floors: all the way to the bottom and out the opposite side.

“That gonna be a lot of spackling…”

Reed rushed past him to check on Susan, giving Peter a hand after she was up and talking in a few seconds.

“Reed, I’m fine. I’m fine. Where’s Spiderman?”

He really loved that lady. Peter grunted “Glad you’re okay.” It would have sounded a little less grunty is his ankle felt a little less twisted. Him and Mr. Fantastic punched the few remaining Doombots on this side of the cavern while Johnny protected Agent Hill and the rest of the agents. At least he thought he was protecting them. They had honestly been covering his back more so than the other way around.

“Any news?” Peter asked in the general direction of the agent, weakly taking a Doombot out at the knee.

Hill continued “EMP is a no-go unless we can tap into the main tower control. Module A also controls the-”

As the words left her mouth, the electricity in the building flickered off, and only the glow of the setting sun illuminated the Doombots. One of which, knocked Peter to the ground right before he kicked it off the cliff.

“The backups are compromised,” she stated.

A voice came from the speakers above, “Sorry, I didn’t know SHIELD still used an obsolete power command distribution method.” A flash of metal knocked Doom out of the sky and down through the crumbling concrete floors below.

“Stark,” Susan and Reed concluded together. Susan crossed her arms. Peter still sat on the floor.

Doom crashed down at the bottom level, twenty floors down.

“Father!!” the Doombots cried and jumped after him like lemmings.

Then came Ironman through  the roof followed by Hulk, Captain America, Hawkeye, Thor, Deadpool, and lo and behold: Nick Fury ziplining down to grace them with his presence.

“Hill, I’m not gone for more than a few hours to check up on these guys and my foyer has a new skylight.”

“I’m sorry sir, our new security system was breached.”

Deadpool rushed over to Spiderman and helped him up.

“Baby Boy are you okay? Did Daddy Doom do this to you?” The lights flickered back on just as night fell upon them.

“Daddy… what? No, I’m fine. Just some scrapes.” Deadpool looked worse for wear as well. Mostly just dirt and blood. It looked like all the other supers on the mission had time to clean up except for him. “He did some major damage to SHIELD though. The new security system relied too heavily on external hard drives connected by outsourced network host. I mean it’s better than National Security but if I had a dollar for every time a high level security code failed over a few lines of source well...” _I could  quit my day job. Oh wait! I did!_

Deadpool stared at him blankly. “Spidey, you know I love your nerd side.”

Peter was glad nobody could see him blush the color of his suit. He punched the larger man.

Deadpool looked worse for wear as well. Mostly just dirt and blood. It looked like all the other supers on the mission had time to clean up except for him.

“No time for talk, let’s move,” Captain America ordered.

Deadpool winked at Spidey. “Duty calls,” he says and backflipped down the gaping hole. Him and the rest of the team dropped down to finish... _well it’s their battle now I guess_ , Spiderman thought.

He stood up to go help them anyways, but Nick Fury stopped him.

“Not so fast, Spiderman. I need a field report.”

“Wait… like right now?” Peter heard fighting below. He for sure heard something reminiscent of a Wilhelm scream. “Like _now_ now?”

“Yes. _Now_ now. Please step into my office.” He gestured to some some rubble with a table behind it. The table was on fire.

“Uhm… okay.” Peter sat down on a concrete block on the less charred side of the table. Fury paced back and forth the only patch of floor clear enough to pace on.

“During the mission, Deadpool went out on his own. He gathered some intel outside of the Avengers. Now we had known about this for a while, but didn’t have many clear culprits until now.”

“Wait, so you don’t actually need a field report.” Fury glared at the smaller man. He hunched over meekly. “Are you going to tell me what this is about…?”

“I’m getting to that.” Fury shot him a look from his one good eye. “Does anyone want you dead, Spiderman?”

“That's…” Another explosion ravaged behind him. “A stupid question.”

Just then, Doom came flying up out of the hole in the ceiling, the whole team trailing him.

“You have won this time, do-gooders!” he hollered robotically, as if he was some sort on 1950’s bad guy. Then he turned and took off, what was left of the various Doom-minions flying behind him. Johnny and Susan flew after him.

“Spiderman, we have some intel on a scheme that has your name written all over it.”

“My name?” The rest of the squad from down below did various stunts to reach the upper level of the Triskelion. “What did I do now?”

“Does the name Norman Osborn ring any bells?”

_Fuck yeah it did…_

Everyone looked a little uncomfortable at that name. A certain PR debacle in the not so distant past made them all shift in their boots a bit. Especially Peter.

“Yeah.. I’m familiar.”

“Well it looks like he wants to cash in on some unfinished business with you. Our intel found compilations of thousands of pictures of you all over the city plus files nobody should have access to except the avengers.”

“Wait, does that mean he knows-”

“Your secret identity? No, we didn’t find any evidence on that. We think he is going for a more public image approach.”

“The media. Great.”

Stark piped up, “All publicity is good publicity, kid.”

“Yeah not when your don’t have billions of dollars to offer up as an apology for the 'good publicity’”

Tony gazed out the window dramatically, “Ah, c'est la vie.”

Fury spoke once more, “Have you ever heard of a little paper called the Daily Bugle?”

“Yeah I--” _Just quit_ \-- “know it.”

“Well I haven’t heard of too many genetic testing tycoons buying up local paper companies just for the thrill of it.”

“Wait he bought it? Norman Osborn bought the Daily Bugle?! Ouch.” Peter stood and immediately sat back down. “I guess I’ve… stayed away from the paper recently.”

“He bought it after your little incident. Ever wonder why they were the only one talking about Green Goblin Conspiracies for 3 months? He was clearing his name.”

From above, Johnny and Susan came floating down with Dr. Doom struggling in their grip. They threw him to the floor with a thud (maybe sacrificing some stability of the building). Shield agents surrounded and cuffed him.

“Ah! How nice of you to join us again!” Fury boomed. “You know I love guests.” Hill rolled her eyes and Hawkeye drew a bead on him. “Now where does a nice man like yourself get off stealing SHIELD secrets, hmm? What are you after.”

“I’ll never talk!”

Stark piped up, “Oh great, then we won’t have to listen to a monologue.”

“Fools! You’ll never know what I am plotting! With this information I could--”

“Could you shut up? Please?” Tony quipped. “Because I cannot handle any more over complicated and yet frustratingly simplistic villainous schemes right now.”

“I am with Stark on this one,” Mr. Fantastic agreed. “Doom hasn’t said anything substantive since..”

“Well ever,” Susan finished for him. They smiled at each other.

{Gay}

[They are a hetero couple?]

{That look? That’s some gay shit.}

Reed continued, “whatever information you guys were hiding, he had probably already uploaded it somewhere. I would assume these Doombots, while--” He picked one up and it cried out “ _Father…”_  in his hands. “--buggy, must be recently built. Maybe a base or--”

“Or he is working with someone,” Fury finished. “Hill, do we know what he stole?

“He only breached through security level C2, sir. Then he stopped.”

“He stopped? Or you stopped him?”

“No, the download receipt shows no indication of further attempts to breach.”

Everyone turned to Fury, curiously.

From the back, now sitting with Spiderman, Deadpool spoke out: “So what’s that?”

Everyone turned to the Merc with a Mouth.

“What? We were all thinking it.”

[They hate us now. Why can’t we shut the fuck up?!]

{Social anxiety be real with our new friends}

[Everything was easier when all the people we knew were mercenaries. Let’s just kill the Marvel Universe and be done with this]

Deadpool snatched Spiderman’s hand.

“What is this for?” Peter whispered, keeping his fingers stiff and outstretched as Deadpool’s intertwined fingers squeezed his palm.

“I need the support,” he whispered back. It was more of a loud rasp than a whisper. Peter let his fingers wrap around Wade’s as he rolled his eyes.

Everyone turned back to the leader of SHIELD.

He scanned their faces, sizing them up. “All of the levels in C are civilian information.”

Deadpool: “Oh! C for Civilian! That checks out.”

Tony laughed and pushed past Captain America. “That’s an interesting thing for SHIELD to own. And how much of that data was obtained with the public’s knowledge?”

“I am not at liberty to answer that, Stark. Hill can you get Doom out of here?” Fury ordered. Hill whistled to some staggering SHIELD operatives who grabbed Doom and pulled him down the stairs somewhere. His corny lines echoed through the halls as his doombots fell like slinkies down after him.

“Wait a second, Fury,” Reed demanded. “Doom is our guy. If he has anything else plotted, it’s our job to take care of it.”

“Oh yeah? And are you going to take care of my living room too?” He gestured to the night sky open above him. Reed was silent. “I didn’t think so.”

Susan interjected, “Director Fury, with all due respect, we have dealt with Doom for years. We know him. If there is anything deeper going on here, we need to find find out. He must have  new base, or a new team somewhere. The Fantastic Four is your best bet.”

“Dr. Richards, with all due respect, we have highly trained operatives for this job.”

“But--” Johnny interjected. The tension in the room started to be palpable.

“No. We will take it from here. If you have a problem, take it up with the complaints department.” He gestured to armed Shield agents. The Thing held Johnny back as he stepped forward for a fight.

“Fury, whatever this is that’s going on here, Shield can’t tackle it alone,” Susan argued. “If Doom has civilian information, we can help find out what he is up to. You’ve relied on us before, why is this different? You can’t do this.”

“I think I just did.”

{Awkward}

[Civil War pt. II anyone?]

Everyone except Peter and Wade stood up, looking back and forth between Shield and The Fantastic Four. Johnny caught fire and Susan put her shields up as Fury gave a silent order for his men to stand at the ready.

The silence weighed heavy on everyone in the room. Hawkeye fiddled with his arrows. Thor gripped his hammer tighter. Deadpool offered Spiderman some popcorn.... He took some.

Wade leaned over to Peter, loudly whispering,“I wish Widow was here. I’m pretty sure she would have us all in timeout by now.”

“Deadpool do _not_ make me laugh right now.”

“Aw, you think I’m funny and charming and your dream guy?”

“Deadpool, number one, that is not what I said, and number two…” Peter webbed his mouth closed, finally wiggling his hand out of Wade’s grasp.

The stalemate continued, Fury standing at ease, backed by a battalion of elite soldiers, and the Fantastic Four standing at the ready, Avengers- while not explicitly supporting them- standing in arms.

“That’s enough!” Captain America barked, planting himself between the sides. He locked eyes with Fury, daring him to make a move.

“Fine,” Mr. Fantastic said, prompting everyone to lower their battle stances. Thank god. “Let’s go.” Cautiously, Susan, Johnny, and Ben followed Reed out of the building.

“What the hell was that?” Captain barked at Fury.

He just stood silently, eyes narrowed.

“Anyways… now that that’s over with, why would Doom go after civilian information?” Tony asked. He was mixing himself a drink that Peter couldn’t really fathom where it could have came from.

“Illegally acquired information,” Clint added.

“I know just as much as you do, Stark. We all got here at the same time.”

“And yet I can tell you’re hiding something.”

Steve placed his hand on Tony’s shoulder, “Tony. Don’t bother, this isn’t the first time SHIELD has kept it’s secrets from us.” Then, he turned to leave, everyone else following behind him, finally letting themselves breathe.

\----

Spiderman sat above the city as he usually did, contemplating what Fury hath said as he was leaving.

 

_I’m serious, Spiderman. Make sure you watch your back._

 

I mean, that was freaky, right? Fury usually just yelled at him for making too much of a mess. He generally trusted superheroes not to get themselves killed. And then Tony called him.

 

_Spider Boy, what’s up?_

 

_*static*_

 

_Answer the intercom._

 

_*static*_

 

_Answer. No that’s fine. I forgot about the tracker I have on you. See you in two minutes._

 

_*static ends* Hi Tony._

 

_About time. I made you keep the intercom for a reason._

 

_Sorry._

 

_What are you up to right now?_

 

_I was about to go out on patrol. Why?_

 

_Maybe it’s best you stay in today. Maybe take the week off._

 

_What? What are you saying?_

 

_I’m saying you might want to lay low for a while. Just until things calm down. Talk later._

 

And then Dr. Strange spoke through his mind or some shit:

 

_Peter have you eaten any [insert mystical fruit here] lately? Hm, well you might want to stay away from gargoyles for the next few days then._

 

“Watch your back? Lay low? What does that even mean!” Peter threw a pebble off the roof but winced as he pulled his healing ribs. “As if I wasn’t paranoid enough.”

A snap. Behind a stack of pallets. Peter shot up, “Who’s there!"

A dark figure slithered out from his hiding place, pebbles crunching below his weight. His white eyes pierced through the night as a muscled arm brought forth a… bag of tacos

“Just me Spidey baby!” Wade cooed, sauntering out. Peter relaxed.

“Wade? What are you doing here?”

“Just slingin’ webs, moping on rooftops. You know me. The usual.”

Peter stole a taco from the bag and sat back down.

“I’m not moping.”

“Seem a little mopey to me.”

“Well I’m not.”

“Hmmm I’m detecting some mopage.”

“Deadpool. Drop it.”

“Yessir.”

Peter polished off two more tacos and Wade acted like he wasn’t watching.

“Why were you hiding in the shadows like some creep?”

“Creep? Well, I’m nothing if not a gentleman, Spidey-poo! Do I spy on people sometimes sure? Do I spy on you often? Maybe. Is it every night?”

“Don’t answer that.”

“No comment.”

“Stop avoiding the question.”

“Can’t a pal just bring another pal tacos? Pal to pal? We are pals, right.”

“Is that what they call it? Listen, Wade. If you wanted to bring me tacos, you would have shoved them at me to where I wouldn’t have been able to get a word out before one was in my mouth. I know you, and I know that you went on that whatever mission for Fury and I think it’s really cool that you are an avenger now or whatever but I don’t need you to worry about me. Whatever you saw, or whatever plot Fury thinks someone has out for me, it’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”

“Spidey, I’ll level with you. I have seen some crazy shit in my day. And this shit? Is bad. Not the best. No me gusta. It made me so angry to see all the shit they had on you, Spidey. It wasn’t mature Shakespeare in the Park; this was real super villain shit.”

That made him mad. Did Deadpool think Spiderman couldn’t handle himself? He had been laying low ever since he left the Avengers! He hadn’t left the city, let alone have any epic world-saving battles. And Deadpool thought that, what? That just because Peter was a small-time hero again, all his other deadly battles were just forgotten? Like they didn’t happen? He must have forgot that Peter has seen more shit than almost anybody.

He noticed bullet holes in Wade’s suit that weren’t there when he first left for the mission. Wade caught his staring. Then Peter noticed the blood that was not Deadpool's all over his suit, blending with the red in spikes and splatters from Wade’s katanas.

“I thought it was just a recon mission.”

“Webs, I--”

“You just can’t control yourself, can you?”

“Spidey, c’mon it wasn’t like that. I--”

“So you get put on the Avengers for some extra muscle and they don’t bat an eye when you go back to your old ways? And You feel what? Justified? Just because you’re an Avenger now?”

Deadpool's tone grew dark. “Whoa, low blow, Webs.”

“Low blow? You think you are off the hook for your actions? When--”

“Spidey, do you know what I think is funny? You’re the reason I joined the Avengers. You want to know the only reason I respect superheroes? Besides Captain America’s cartoon franchise, it’s _YOU_. Spiderman. You didn’t see what I saw in there, this was for the best.”

“ _No_ Wade! That is never for the best! Look what I did to Norman, was that for the best?! WE can’t just get _mad_ and let that control us. If you learned anything from me I wish it could have been that! And the Avengers, they what? Just let is happen? With me, they say leaving is for the best and with you it’s a gold star?”

“Spidey--”

“What, Wade? What are you going to tell me now? That I _inspire you_ to kill?”

“I prefer the term un-alive.”

“Gah! What’s going on? What is everyone hiding?”

“Spidey, you didn’t see what I saw.”

“I don’t need to!”

“Oh yeah? Maybe you should have, maybe you could decipher what the fuck is going on here. Spiderman, they had pictures from when you first started out. Like 6 years ago. They have files on every sighting. Every witness sketch. Every DNA scrap you left at crime scenes.” Deadpool took a step closer to the smaller man. “They had every battle.” Another step. “Everything you’ve ever done.” They were standing on the edge of the building now. “And the worst part? Those people I killed were people I used to know. They are high-level assassins and spies and you know what? They didn’t even flinch when I killed them. It was like they got the order that they were expendable and just stood there like zombies.”

“Wade…”

“Spidey whatever is after you, you need to be careful. You can come over to my place. I’ll keep you safe. Just until we know what’s going on.”

“Deadpool I don’t want your help!” Peter pushed Deadpool away with all of k=his might, accidentally throwing him into the stack of pallets behind him. Deadpool grunted up as the dust cleared and pulled a large, splintered scrap of wood out from his side.

“Wade…” Peter too a step forward but flinched at the weight of his actions. "I- I'm sorry," Peter gasped and then flung himself into the air, swinging away. He wasn’t mad at Wade, that man was just trying to protect him. He was right. They were friends. It upset peter more that he reacted the way he had, letting out all his frustrations on Wade. He literally told him not to let his emotions control him. Fuck, what an asshole. _Wade_ was supposed to be the asshole!

When the whole thing with Norman happened after Gwen died, he told the Avengers he was thinking about leaving. How could he stay after preaching morals and responsibility and then beating a public figure half to death? After encouraging Wade to turn the corner on his life and join the Avengers? Even after what Norman did… even after Gwen… Spiderman was still a hero, and he had to act like a hero. When Peter left, he expected there to be more resistance, a push for him to stay. Instead, Captain America looked him dead in the eyes and said, “ _Maybe it’s for the best.”_

And Peter guessed that it _was_ for the best.

So, he left. He stuck to small time crime or team-ups in his area. He focused on school. Ironically, he got a graduate internship at starktech as Peter Parker. Awkward.

He should make it up to Wade. He’s never run from conflict before, but thinking about all the trust Wade put in him, and how much he had broken that trust, it was too much for him to face in the moment. But Uncle Ben would tell him to take responsibility for his actions and turn back. Aunt May would have just locked the door to the house until he had right his wrong as she had done in his younger years.

Peter landed high above the heart of New York, on one of the older buildings with griffin and gargoyle statues jutting out from the ledges. He would go back. If Wade was gone from the roof, he’d take his advice: go to Wade’s apartment. Maybe bring tacos? Maybe a card?

“Sorry for impaling you. Love, Peter. Hmm… Cordially, Peter?” He paced along the ledge. Not even jokes were making him feel any better. Something suspicious was going on, and Wade offered him safety. He just looked him in the face and turned him away. After all the bullshit Wade put him through over the years, becoming friends after Deadpool was just a nuisance for so long, Peter had so much to thank Wade for. He’s the only one giving him any sort of clue as to what the fuck is going on and he just slapped him in his metaphorical face. Maybe everyone is in on this. The only thing he knew is he could trust Deadpool.

Peter didn’t know what it was, but he had a sinking feeling he was caught up in something big. That sinking feeling continued as he turned to swing back to where he left Wade, and out of the corner of his eye he spotted a gargoyle statue with long teeth and long tongue. Something Dr. Strange told him popped in his mind as he was suddenly grabbed by his ankle and jerked into the concrete wall behind him.

The wind was knocked out of him as he saw that black mass wrap around his lower body.

 _Oh fuck_.

He kicked the goop off and whipped a web out into the air, pulling himself off the building only to be tacked into the tower opposite, face first.

This time, the mass felt like it had more of a form. Almost human, but more alien. It presses Peter’s head into the concrete and hissed.

“ ** _It’s niceeee to finally meet you, Ssssspiderman_**.”

“Yeah-” Peter grunted. “You too.” Peter pushed up against the monster snake man thing with all his might and sent them both into freefall. He finally got to see it’s face, a grotesque smile leared at him, long slimy tough pouring out through jagged teeth. But what really made Peter’s eyes widen was the pattern it had on its chest. A spider insignia: just like his own.

They wrestled in the air as Peter struggled to fend off huge slippery hands. Every time he shot his webs out, a black fist caught them. They were only a few stories off the ground.

“Who are you?” Peter yelled as the ground crept closer to them.

“ ** _You don't remember usss_**?” the monster asked, sounding hurt. Angry. “ ** _Eddie, he doesn’t remember ussss_**.” The monster let go as Peter finally landed a web on a building. As it fell, Peter heard a hiss echo into the night, “We are _Venom_.”

He dangled in the air as he watched Venom disappear into the night.

_What. The. Actual. Fuck._

Peter struggled to catch his breath, reaching up to grab his web with his other hand, but a slippery substance on his fingers made him slip. A strange black residue slicked his fingers. Peter hummed as an idea came to mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoa Whoa whoa I thought I'd get more information in this chapter???? 
> 
> Nope, just more buildup.
> 
> I kind of hate how this chapter turned out but I will edit it later maybe.
> 
> Next chapter was get to see some juicy detailssss


	3. Tom's debut

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is this edited? Who knows??  
> I know and it's not. Enjoy!

Norman Osborn coming up from the basement lab when he heard the call. His latest project had made a detour.

“He is waiting for you in your office, sir,” his assistant told him over the phone.

“I’m on my way up. Thank you Denise.”

Norman made his way up the stairs, a little challenging in his old age. The Green Goblin Serum was like a drug, and since he stayed away from it, his physical state had deteriorated quicker than a normal human’s should. It had only been about six months, ever since that little... debacle with that scum hero. Cover-ups always cost a fortune and he was not about to put his company deeper in the hole.

He made his way to a white foyer with high ceilings and bright LED lights above. The floor is empty except for ample security and his assistant’s desk at the front.

“Denise, please get me a coffee.”

“Yes sir.”

He steps into his office to see a man pacing up and down the floorboards.

“Are you trying to ruin my flooring? Take a seat.” Norman pointed to two chairs opposite his desk as he himself sat in his large cushioned seat.

“I don’t think we can sit right now, Osborn. That Spider twerp has us too riled up.” The more Eddie talked, the more venom rippled off of his shoulders in angry tendrils.

“Yes, I heard about the little stunt you pulled.”

“Boss, the plan was takin’ too long. That little insect has to pay.”

“And he will, Mr. Brock. In due time. But if you and our little pal here,” he pronounced, gesturing at Venom, “get too carried away again, then guess what will happen?”

“We didn’t try and-”

“Just take guess. You are starting to make my head hurt.”

“I honestly don’t see the harm in taking him out right now.”

“Oh!” Norman chucked and put his feet up on his desk. “You don’t see the harm? That’s cute.” Norman peered up at Eddie with wicked eyes. “Well let’s say the itsy bitsy spider is squashed right now. All our problems are gone! Hooray!” Norman stood from his chair. “Who do you think will come after the killers of Spiderman, hm?”

“Uh-”

“Don’t strain yourself, Edward. I’ll explain. Spiderman has a legion of heroes backing him. A god, a Hulk, the most important man in New York, ex-HYDRA, and now an immortal mercenary. Need I explain more?”

“Well-”

“Of course I do.” Norman sighed and sat down on the desk next to Eddie who finally took a seat. “If we kill Spiderman now, we will be found out. Phase one of my plan may be initiated, but this part is all on you and me. I have one question for you. Both of you. Do you want Spiderman to suffer?”

“Yes!” Venom leaped out of Eddie, coating his whole torso and pulsing with rage.

“Good. Then we need him alive. Since finding out who he is hasn’t been giving you much luck, we will just have to get our hands a little dirty. You bring him here, and we can uhh.... we take away everything he has. Just like he took it all away from you, yes?”

“Yes…”

“Now,” Norman stood once again, leaning over in Eddie’s face, inches apart. “Are you going to play nice? Or will I have to make you?”

“Osborn, I don’t appreciate that tone.”

“Really? What are you going to do? Is the big bag Venom going to get me?”

“They really want to, Osborn.”

“Listen here, Brock.” The CEO shifted his posture. He made himself look friendlier, more open. “Venom escaped and found you for a reason: to bring us together to fight our common enemy, hm? We are a team. And a team is only as strong as its weakest link. Right now, I’m looking at the weakest link. Keep yourself under control. Next time, I won’t be so nice.” Osborn got up and opened the door. “It has been a treat, Mr. Brock.”

\----------

 

Peter Parker had worked at Starktech for a little over two months, and at this point had already made a name for himself around the lab. People came to him with complicated problems or captivating queries. He pretty much had free reign of the lab and had already led a presentation to Tony Stark himself. Afterwards, Stark told him there was something familiar about him. Oh, he didn’t even know the half of it.

So it was easy for him to swipe his way in after hours for some late night research. Nobody noticed the brown-haired overachiever busy overachieving.

Last night he started studying this thing until about 5 in the morning. He had found three things: it was some sort of organic colony of cells, it really had it out for him, and he had no idea what it was. It’s genetic code made no sense to him and was impossible to isolate. It’s dynamic structure made most tests impossible. But all that just made Peter Parker all the more interested. He took the vial of black goop from out of his sleeve.

He put his goggles on over his glasses and stuffed the Venom baby into a sealed chamber. The kind with the gloves that stick in. Peter felt very sciencey using this particular machine. The glob jumped and leaped around as soon as peter let it out of the vial, forming a little mouth and growling up at Peter.

“Aw.. you’re too cute! Too bad your dad is a maniac. Now, are you an alien? Or maybe someone’s moldy lunch?”

It bounced around more, trying to dent the glass. Peter recalled a term his Theoretical Genetics and Future of Life (BIO594) professor once dropped in class.

“Some sort of.. Symboyote?”

“Hey what you got there?”

Peter screamed like a shriller version of Minnie Ripperton as he heard Deadpool's familiar voice whisper in his ear. He spun around to face him, whipping his hands out of the machine and covering the tank as best he could with his small frame.

“Oh Wa- Deadpool uhh… what are you doing here?” And why do I know you well enough for you to not setting off my Spider-sense.

“Oh honey I could ask you the same question,” Wade cooed, leaning over to see the tank better. Peter shifted casually in his way.

Peter stared at him, wide eyed like a deer caught in the headlights. Deadpool stared back, his gaze softening the longer they locked eyes. Peter wondered how so much expression was achieved through a mask.

Earlier last night, Peter showed up at the rooftop with two burgers and a speech prepared after the whole Venom goop attack thing. When Wade wasn’t there he searched half the city for him, hitting up all his usual spots. When he couldn’t find him, Peter swung to the heart of the city, put on civilian clothes, and buzzed into Stark Tower.

What he didn’t know was that alone on that rooftop Deadpool stood watching him. He couldn’t face Spiderman then, couldn’t let him know all the shit that he saw, couldn’t tell him how messed up he was, couldn’t let him know all the shit that was in his brain. Deadpool hid in the shadows and followed the spider around town until he vanished into a subway station. The next day, Spiderman was nowhere to be found, which made Wade wonder if the little hero had actually taken his advice. Peter didn’t of course, but stopped two robberies that night and made his way to the lab.

[There, now everyone is caught up.]

“I’m doing some extra research. Deadlines and stuff. Classified… Wait how did you get in here?”

“Badges aren’t hard to get, kid. Classified? Interesting.”

“You stole a… nevermind. Uhm, well I’m just going to get back to work, so--”

“Are those real glasses?” the larger man asked, now leaning forward far enough to where Peter’s back was pressed up against the tank.

“Uhm, yes?”

“Well I only ask because.. They are a fashion statement nowadays I guess. Like those hipster pricks. WIth the beards and the lattes.” Peter could feel his heart beating out of his chest.

Wade had never seen a nerd this hot in his life. That soft brown hair mussed up from fingers running through it, his chapped lips that still looked plump even with a split in them, his smell, his deep eyes, and dat brain doe all made Wade transfixed by this scrawny little nerd boy.

“And like… those doe-eyes really pop with those glasses on. And goggles to match? I really think I might have landed in nerd heaven? Death? You in here?” The merc looked around.

“What are you doing in here, Deadpool?” Wade finally backed off and was now looking around and stuff in the lab. Peter finally could breathe normally again.

“Me? Oh nothing’ much. I was trying to get ahold of some sort of surveillance tech or something. You seen Iron-Lad anywhere tonight?”

“Uh… no it’s a little late for him to be here.” 4am can do that to a guy.

“True, true, but you're here? I guess I shouldn’t stereotype you dweeb types with all of your-” He picked up a vial of something. “-science. You know you actually remind me of this really hot nerd I know, not that you aren’t hot yourself, I’m not saying that, but I guess you seem familiar…” Wade was staring again.

“Oh, uhm. I get that a lot.” Peter shifted uncomfortably. “If you are looking for Mr. Stark, you should try again tomorrow. Or uh, later today I guess. In the morning.” Peter turned back to studying Venom but his brain was focussing on anything and everything else. Wade was seeing Peter for the first time and didn’t even know. Wait, did he know? Was he just playing dumb out of courtesy? And he isn’t questioning what Peter is doing here so late. Is he trying to break in? He was so warm. Did he see Peter blushing? Oh god… This was a disaster.

Keep it together, Parker.

Peter began to turn around to show Deadpool the door when the bottom of his lab coat was lifted up past his waist. Deadpool stared at the curve of his worn jeans.

“Spidey?” Deadpool wondered aloud.

In a panic, Peter squeaked and ripped his labcoat out of the merc’s hand. “What? Spiderman? Is he here or something? Anyways haha please don’t grope me!” He slid Deadpool out the door. “It was nice meeting you! Don’t come back!” He tried to shut the door but the Merc stuck his foot in the frame.

“Ouch.”

“Please leave. You’re making this a hostile work environment.” Peter bargained through a gritted smile.

Deadpool stood still a moment, pondering in silence, brows furroed until his posture shifted to something more casual, snakelike.His foot still in the door, Wade propped his arm against the door, pushing it open with his weight, challenging the lab tech to keep holdiing it cloed. See what would happen. Charming.

“Listen sorry about the whole lab coat thing, don’t want to treat anyone like a piece of meat ya know? And this is your space. I’m just really into the whole nerd thing you got going on. Are you a tits man or an ass man? I’m more of an ass man myself if that wasn’t clear enough. Anyways, mind if I come in just to keep you company? I was thinkin’ about just waiting a few hours until Iron-Cock gets in. I swear I’ll keep my mouth shut and my hands to myself! Please Dr. Hottie?”

Peter was silent for a few beats, holding the door in place before slowly opening it. Peter could tell Deadpool’s coy charades from a mile away. Spiderman could play that game too. If Deadpool knew, and was pretending he didn’t, and Peter knew that Deadpool knew, then he would just have to go along with it to make sure that Deadpool knew that Peter knew that Deadpool knew, and by extension, make sure that Deadpool knew nothing that Peter knew.

 

Peter couldn’t hide a smile as he huffed and said, “What am I gonna do? Have security drag you out? From what I’ve heard, it would take a whole battalion to subdue you.”

“THat is true,” Wade cheeped as he sauntered inside, perching himself on a lab table. Peter cringed when a centrifuge with late stage data was knocked to the floor.

“Oops. Sorry Dr. Hottie.” Wade said and pushed more paperwork on the ground on purpose, testing him like a hawk testing a sparrow, waiting for him to leave the nest.

That made Peter visibly flinch. “Call me Tom please. I’m not a doctor yet,” Pete corrected. He stuck his hands back into the tank with the symbiote. It looked a little impatient for him to come back. Interesting. Peter wrote that down. Then he pretended to write some more, waiting for Deadpool to make another move. Just stay in the nest, Pete. Patience is key.

[Fake name]

Wade appeared behind Peter, once again completely in his personal space. “So, Tommy-”

“It’s Tom.”

[Don’t test us with that shit, kid]

{Tom is such a boring name. He couldn’t have picked a better fake one? We could just punch it out of him}

[Long game is more fun]

“Okay Tomtom, what do you have going on here?”

Wade really knew how to push Peter’s buttons, didn’t he?

“Deadpool-”

“It’s Wade to you, hot stuff.”

“Fine. Wade, you are in my bubble.”

Wade leapt back and started investigating the lab further. “Sorry sweet cheeks. SOmetimes I have boundary issues. Like when I want to slit someone’s throat or hop in their pants. THere really isn’t an in between for me. Maybe an in beween if the babe im with is into that kinky stuff. I’m totally not fyi. I like to keep buisness and pleasure separate. And for me, knives are buisness. Unless you are into that? What is that thing in the tank.”

Peter rolled his eyes. Wade really did act this way with everyone, he guessed. Obnoxious o a fault.

A heavy pause. Peter has some cards to play. As Spiderman, hiding this assailant would make sense because he doesn’t want Wade involved anyways. Wade is used to Spiderman being secretive with his sciencey things. But Peter- or sorry, Tom wouldn’t lie to a famous mercenary about scince. But Tom had tried to kick him out before. Wade will get too suspicous too quick if Peter tries to hide an ace in the hole. FuckI Peter is bad at lying

“It is a symbiote.”

“A sin biome? Because honey, I’ve been there, and that is nothing I’ve seen before.”

“A symbiote. A collection of alien organisms that act as one being. It’s pretty interesting actually.”

Wade smirked. “I thought you said it was classified?”

[Gottem]

{What are you hiding, TOM? If that is even your real name}

[ It’s not]

{Tom rhymes with bomb. I’m just saying it could be an unconscious thing.}

“Shut up. He’s not a terrorist. At least, I don’t think he is.”

“Oh.. uhm,” Peter choked.

He really hadn’t meant to tell Wade anything. A stranger wouldn’t spit out any secrets about advanced biotech to a mercenary stranger, what was he thinking? Lying was always Deadpool’s thing! Peter really needs to get better at this. He began to sweat, but tried to keep his body language loose. It wasn’t working.

“Oh, I get it. You’ve heard I’m an avenger now, right? Gah, I love my fans,” he joked with a smirk. “But it is a little strange to have so much trust for a merc you’ve never met with Stark Lab Classified information. I don’t think half the team has this clearance.”

[Bad liar. Sounds like-]

{Spider-Man, Spider-Man, Does whatever a spider can}

“Uhm, well.. You are right! I’m just a big fan.” Peter was backtracking, panicked. He couldn’t let it show. He focused on keeping his voice steady and not about the towering hunk getting really suspicious of him.

[Is he strong? Listen bud, He's got radioactive blood. ]

“Hm, a big fan who likes to study aliens late into the night? How often are you out this late? Studying? Maybe swinging around?” This kid really looked like Spidey. Spidey’s name is Tom? Lame. Wade was happy Tom was a fake name.

[Look Out! Here comes the Spider-Man.]

Peter took a shaky breath. “I don’t really know what you are talking about Mr. Wilson.”

“Ha! I didn’t tell you my last name!”

[In the chill of night, At the scene of a crime ]

“I read it in the paper.” Peter didn’t look up from his work, a bead of sweat trailing behind the collar of his lab- coat. He hoped Wade didn’t notice.

Wade noticed.

“Yeah? What paper?”

[Like a streak of light, He arrives just in time.]

“Daily Bugle.”

“Hmm… You’re good, Spidey.” Wade wandered off to tinker with more gadgets, not before singing “Spider-Man, Spider-Man, Friendly neighborhood Spider-Man”

Peter grit his teeth as a bead of sweat beat down his neck. _Of course Wade, the crude, talkative, idiotic mercenary would recognise my ass! I read it in the paper? Real smooth, Pete. Or Tom I guess! Tom? Really? Maybe all this lack of sleep has made me FORGET MYSELF. THIS IS NOT OKAY. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHISHWEFOIHWOIFHIOWRHGIJRBHSKBJBRJBJWEBGJBJBWGKJBWKJBGKJWBKJBGWKHRBKGHBWRKHBGKHRB_ , Peter thought calmly.

“Deadpool, I hate to break this to you, but I am _not_ Spiderman. Spiderman is probably out and about in the city somewhere- I don’t know- doing whatever a Spiderman does.”

Wade smiled, absolutely sure of himself. He was practically floating off the ground he was so excited.

But then, the dark figure swung past the window and into the night. Both men looked out at the shadow.

 _Venom_. It had to be. Peter’s lips parted with a sharp intake of air and his eyes widened.

[Fuck. Not Spidey.]

{So sure! And yet, so wrong}

[This fucking idiot thought he was the next Sherlock Holmes]

{He really got us going. I am so fucking mad right now I could stab him}

[He should stab himself. He deserves it. Tom or whoever is not Spidey.]

Wade’s thoughts swirled from brief confusion, to disappointment, to horniness. A complex emotional horniness, mind you.

“Whoa! Can he swing from a web? Take a look overhead!” Deadpool sang, running to the floor-to ceiling window like a kid on Christmas. “And with a costume change to bat? Oh, damn, Spidey you really doin’ somethin to my nethers! I wish he wasn’t swinging so fast so I could get a better look. Me-yow. In a respectful, and emotionally complex type of Me-yow.”

Opposite the room, Peter had gone white as a sheet.

Deadpool took notice at the shift in atmosphere coming in waves off of the small scientist. “Whoa there, Tommy boy, you alright?” Even if this character wasn’t Spidey, he was still a kid in Stark tower at almost 4 in the morning who was hiding his real name. Had to be some sort of protagonist. Deadpool walked over to him with his hand extended, offering himself up for support. Peter retreated a step.

“No, Pool. I’m fine. Look there’s Spiderman, right? Why don’t you go and fight crime with him or something.”

Peter didn’t want Deadpool to find Venom, but he really couldn’t be around Wade right now. The fight and the guilt and his underestimation of how good Wade would be about figuring him out. All at 4am was a bit much.

Maybe Venom would keep him occupied for a few hours.

“Yeah I’d love to, but uhh I am hoping to do some recon tonight. Looking out on some hero stuff.”

Deadpool sounded uncharacteristically meek, but Peter saw him quickly lost in thought.

“Shut up! I will get there when I get there.”

“Huh?”

“Not you, hot stuff. This is gonna protect Spidey more than make up sex.”

“Wow…” Peter didn’t want to picture it. He pictured it anyways against his better judgement. It… wasn’t bad....

“Whoa, did I say that out loud? Haha just kidding I say everything out loud! You know what, fuck this. I’ll go talk to him and then I will kick some more ass and he will be good and we will all be good!” Wade takes a step and then freezes, hesitating only for an instant before striding towards the door. If Peter really was Tom or anyone else who didn’t know Wade, he would have missed it. There was so much palpable struggle in that little hesitation. It just made Peter feel even more sick with guilt.

But he couldn’t reveal his secret identity based on principle and he defo wasn’t about to get Wade more involved in his clusterfucked mess. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a good idea for Wade to go out there and find Venom. He would go out and discover a creature who looked like a beefed out chocolate pudding Spiderman made out of the same stuff that ‘Tom’ was working with. First, Spiderman would immediately be put under surveillance when they knew a strange unidentified enemy was attacking him while some undercover operation already had it out for him.

Then Deadpool would go, “huh, that slime guy looks like a big version of what Tom had… Hmmm my big stupid brain has deduced that maybe Tom and Spidey are linked somehow. Omg!! Spiderman is Peter Parker and he lied to me to my face to study a threat he hid from me (and the team) also in front of my face.” Yeah, that would be awesome. NOT. This idea to get Wade put o here was sounding less and less worth it.

“Actually, hold on. You uh… you said got in a fight right? I mean if he wanted to talk he would probably come and find you?” Peter didn’t mean for the last part to come out like a question, but it did.

“Uhm… well he did try and find me and I was too much of a jackass to face him, you see...” Deadpool pulled a skull of of a display skeleton and held it up like Hamlet in Hamlet. “... This Spider-being doth cast an enchant/ on my existence and I cannot/ lose his friendship or love to my insensitive- Well the rest breaks the pentameter. So it was nice knowing ya, hot stuff, but Spidey boy is really my number one, so-” He threw the skull behind him and spooked the mice.

“Wait!” Peter grabbed the larger man’s arm. Deadpool could _not_ go out and meet Venom. Peter would have barely survived if Venom hadn’t let him go. He didn’t want anyone involved that didn’t have to be. This was his turf. He was going to handle it without anyone getting hurt. Maybe Venom would clear some stuff up about what the hell kind of scheme he was caught up in.

“Listen, baby, if you keep looking at me with those needy eyes I’m going to have to take you over that bench over there.”

Peter recoiled immediately. “That’s sexual harassment.”

“Yeah sorry about that, haven’t gotten my rocks off in a few if you know what I mean.” Buttons, meet pushed.

“I wish I didn’t. Listen, Wade. I know Spiderman. He is a-” Peter cringed “-nerdy-type like me, right? He helps out in the lab sometimes.” Not a total lie. “It sounds pretty shitty to not confront Spiderman if he was trying to apologize or whatever he was maybe theoretically doing, but it sounds like he really respects you and maybe even tolerates you to the extent of being ‘pals’ or whatever.” Peter gulped as Wade started. “He will understand if you don’t go after him right now. Maybe he has a lot on his mind.” Peter wished he sounded more uncertain about how his alter ego was feeling. Maybe he should have, with how confused he was about it himself. Talking about it like this was kind of therapeutic. “Whatever it is, you guys will still be friends after whatever it is blows over. If you still want to be friends with him after whatever he did- or you did maybe, could have been either one of you- you’ll be fine.”

Wade blinked, standing abnormally still for the usual bouncing ball of muscle he was. “You are right, kid.” Wade finally dropped the charade and let his shoulders fall, relaxed. “You sure I haven’t seen you somewhere before?”

“Tony should be back in an hour. The sun is almost up.”

“You sure we can’t get out of here?” He waggled his eyebrows from under his mask.

Aaaaand back to this garbage again.

“Deadpool, number one: no. Number two: I have work to do. Just uh… keep me quiet company until Mr. Stark gets here, and I can take you up to his office. Deal?”

Deadpool sighed loudly and obnoxiously. “Can I help you with your work at least?”

“Uh, sure. Go play with the chemicals in that drawer.” Peter absently gestured to a table with nothing above a 0.01 molarity and rubbed his temples. Why is dealing with Wade as Peter so much worse than as Spiderman? Peter put his hands back in the gloves but before he knew it, Wade was there pushing him aside, opening the lid to the chamber, mouse in hand.

“Wade NO!” Peter was too late. The symbiote leaped out of the container in into Wade’s face like a squid. Wilson pulled it off easily and threw it back into the tank with the mouse.

“Wade what are you doing?!” He slammed the hatch down and locked it in place.

“I thought it would be sciency.”

“Deadpool you can’t just throw mice in the tank and expect science to happen! It could have gotten away! You don’t know what this thing is! Do you have any morals??? That mouse is going to be ripped apart!”

“Tommy-”

“What were you thinking?!” _I could punch this idiot right now ohmygodthisthingcouldhaveburnedNYtothegroundanditwouldhavebeenhisfaultauhweyfhusgdfsudfuduygfgfuygueygfuygwew._

“Tom look at the science happening!”

Deadpool grabbed the screaming scientist’s temples gently in his hands and turned his head towards the tank. Peter huffed, about to yank his head away nut then he saw it. His mouth fell open. Inside the tank, the symbiote had completely encased the mouse, absorbing into it’s skin. Peter watched in horror, scared the symbiote would kill the little mouse, but instead the mouse looked stronger, angrier, ready for a fight. He started attacking the glass with slimy black paws.

Wade and Peter turned to each other, mouths agape, excited and shocked. They both breathed a sigh of relief as their brains’ buzzing filled the air. They were both thinking at a million miles an hour, smiling into each other's eyes.

Deadpool gestured to the space between himself and Peter enthusiastically. “Now this is chemistry.”


	4. We all effing knew it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really short chapter I know but writing chapter 4, this just didn't seem to fit in there. Good news though: Ch 5 will be out this week!!! Thanks for bearing with me!!!

The Triskelion only needed the weekend to be almost completely fixed up. Fury was left all alone as he ventured down to the bottom floor, turning the corner and stalking down a narrow hallway. At the end, an elevator stood with a keypad and print scanner. Fury entered and descended down into the earth. He tapped his foot as the doors finally lurched open, revealing a vast overlook of computer data and researchers surrounding a large hologram table in the center. Fury trod down the stairs into the hum of screens, dim red light illuminating his features. His boots clicked down the empty walkways towards the center. Everyone had gone home for the day after the hell that was Dr. Doom. Everyone except one.

“Coulson,” Fury stated, arriving in front of the large white table.

From underneath it, a bit of oil speckling his cheek, rose Agent Coulson. “Hello, sir.”

“And where have you been?”

“Filing,” he answered happily. He shut the latch under the table and stood again.

“Checking the hard drives while we do all the work?”

“It seems that way, sir. How was the mission?”

“It was uneventful. Another disaster averted.”

“I heard Spiderman has a target on his back now?”

“And how did you hear that?”

“Word travels quick through the Triskelion, sir.”

Fury raised an eyebrow.

“You didn’t turn our com link off, sir.”

He sighed, “I guess you would have known soon enough. Something fishy is going on here, Coulson. I don’t like the smell of this one.”

“Is that why we have Doom in our custody?”

“Don’t push it, Coulson. You are my best agent, but things can change.”

“I will get my resume ready.”

Fury smirked. “We have Doom as more of a suspicion of mine. Computer, pull up the Doom footage from Friday.”

The table lit up with blue holograms projecting the top floor of the headquarters. Business as usual until an explosion puts a hole in the ceiling and all of the non-security personnel scatter to the nearest exits. Fury narrowed his eyes as the chaos continued.

“Is it just me or do those Doombots look different to you?” Fury asked.

Coulson hummed and leaned in. The scene continued as the Fantastic Four showed up moments later, followed by Spiderman swinging into action. A Doombee buzzed up to Dr. Doom levitating in the sky and handed him a standard unmarked flash drive. The only information stored above ground was civilian or global affairs. Most of the data in there could be accessed by police databases or private corporations. Apple has to put it’s information somewhere. 

“Computer, pause.” He zoomed in on a still frame of a fully robotic Doombot zooming down to the lower levels. It was smaller than a beetle and seemed virtually undetectable. “Do we know where this one went?” 

The computer answered by shifting the displays to follow the small bot down and into the bottom floor. In all the chaos, it managed to zoom down to the bottom floor and into the door leading to the room Fury and Coulson were in right now. However, before it made it far, it was stopped by an agent, or at least what seemed to be an agent. He handed the robot something: a flash drive with some sort of symbol on it. Fury zoomed in more, focusing in on the symbol. 

On the second flash drive, a green symbol stood out against the silver. Oscorp, it read.

Fury and Coulson looked at each other before Fury rubbed a hand over his face and dragged himself back towards the exit.

“After you shut this down, take the day off Coulson.” Fury punched in the code to exit. “You are going to need it.”


	5. Diabetes and Mysteries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I know I promised this by a few days ago but it is here now! Enjoy!

The weekend passed without anything eventful. Peter spend almost all of his time on patrol or analysing the Venom symbiote. As Spiderman, Peter never saw Deadpool, but Wade would come in in the wee hours making discoveries with Peter Parker; or  _ Tom _ he guessed. The first night, Saturday, Wade showed up looking for more equipment, asking Peter if he knew how to customize a rocket launcher with poison dart frog venom. Peter referred him to wait for Tony again, but Deadpool stayed “for the science,” standing way too close to Peter for the majority of the time. Sunday was different.

It was only midnight and Deadpool had come in soaked in blood, asking for Tony or Cap or anyone, even asked if he knew where Spiderman is.

“I… I don’t know, Deadpool. He is probably out on patrol, or something. I don’t know why he’d be here even if he was free.” Peter stared at the man, bloody and looming across the room. “What… happened?”

Deadpool wouldn't answer, but quickly changed the subject, asking about the symbiote. The conversation continued normally after that, both of them bouncing questions and ideas off eachother. Peter, or  _ Tom _ revealed little bits and pieces about himself which he never would have been able to if he were talking with Wade as Spiderman, so it was actually nice- a bit destracting- but nice. Peter learned more about Wade too. Usually, Deadpool had such an untouchable and all-powerful fascade with Spiderman, joking in the face of danger or making inappropriate quips instead of getting mad or upset about something. This Deadpool opened up a little more. For example:

With Spiderman:

“There was this ONE time, I was in line to get a Chalupa the day Taco Bell released them, and this bastard cut me in line. I was in my suit and everything. WHo did he think he is? My swords were itching to cut the dude, but I tapped his shoulder and BOOM, it was ME. But like, zombie me, not like cute clone me! HE ended up being from a different dimension I think. We fought for a good three hours and took out like four buildings. He had NO sense of humor and another thing…”

 

With Peter/Tom:

“Speaking of fake names - * _ cough _ * TOM- once I came face to face with a clone-me. But not like a cute clone, like a zombie frankenstein clone. Was it freaky? Yes. The funny part, though is that we were both in the same line at Taco Bell! Crazy how much this brainless version of me and I had in common. I guess at my base level, we were pretty much the same: hungry for Chalupas and hellbent on destruction… Well, I guess that was the old me. I’d like to think I’ve changed, even if I still would kill for a Chalupa. ANYWAYS, this guy had NO sense of humor about the whole thing. We fought for a good three hours and took out like four buildings. And another thing…”

 

It was refreshing, spending time with Deadpool without trying to compete for the best villain take-down or who could make the best comeback. Not that he didn’t  _ love _ that, but this was more of another level of… well maybe admiration, but probably just, Peter didn’t know… companionship maybe? All he knew was that he liked it. Peter guessed this must be how it feels to spend time with your cool coworkers outside of work. He thought at first this must be how it was like for everyone.

Peter had been meaning to try and find Deadpool as Spiderman and apologize, but he figured they would just meet up soon and talk after a battle or something. Seeing Pool like this though, just made Peter’s guilt build like a stone in his stomach. This was a closeness they had never really shared before, and Wade didn’t even know it was happening,  _ and _ it was happening right after Spidey  _ impaled Wade by throwing him into jagged wooden spikes  _ and while Deadpool was  _ investigating a cult against Spiderman _ . 

Peter decided he didn’t want to think about all that right now. He had too much to do and Wade was too distracting even without complex emotions attached. 

He isn’t called the Merc with a mouth for nothing. This night it seemed his mouth didn’t stop moving since Peter first changed the subject away from  _ blood _ . He was still covered in the stuff, too, which was “...Completely unsanitary in a genetics lab.”

“You have an alien in a fish tank.”

Peter’s brows knit. “Touche.” He turned back to his work and they made discoveries for a while until Wade “gotta go!” when his com buzzed. 

The more sciency stuff they did together, the more Peter had learned about the symbiote:

  1. Venom is affected by high frequencies (Deadpool dropping an entire shelf of metal surgical trays. The mouse was finally free.)
  2. Venom can boost the physicality of any living host (Deadpool had gathered a small army of bugs; he brought a cat in too, but Peter decided that was too far) and enhanced emotions.
  3. Peter Parker might really like and enjoy being around Deadpool maybe.



 

The first bullet point was probably the most useful piece of information they had discovered.

That second one peaked Peter’s interest. Whoever Big Venom was infecting, he was fueling their rage towards Spiderman. Why they were mad at him? He had no idea. Usually villains did something evil, he stopped it and  _ then _ they went after him. Having a nemesis right off the bat was kind of new territory for him.

The third bullet point was... confusing. Peter knew that he got along  _ great _ with Wade for some odd reason, but always as Spiderman and Deadpool. As a team, Spiderman trusted Wade to have his back no matter what. It took a long time to get there, and they had both changed a lot in that time; Wade had changed a lot more dramatically than Peter. And through it all, Wade was really the only one who helped him through the bullshit last year with Osborn and the Avengers after what happened to Gwen. They had been allies or even teammates before that, but honestly at this point Peter depended on Wade as a friend more than anything, and Wade was there for him above almost anything, burritos excluded. And him being a  _ hunk _ didn’t make matters worse.

Which is  _ exactly _ why this whole situation was  _ weird _ and  _ not allowed morally _ and d _ ouble weird not allowed this isn’t happening _ . 

Specifically in regards to how interested (and strangely helpful) Wade was becoming with the  _ Venom  _ situation. Peter left shortly after Wade that night, hanging up his coat for web-shooters and swinging into the city with a new understanding of Venom.

It wasn’t worth Peter involving Deadpool and sacrificing one of his only real friends. If this thing had it out for  _ him  _ specifically, it was his responsibility to take care of it. The person inside this Symbiote hated him, and it seemed anyone that he would usually ask for help from wants him as far away from any sort of danger right now. Peter had considered that Venom is probably just a small piece in a larger puzzle, evidently out to get  _ him _ specifically, but he is a friendly neighborhood Spiderman after all, so he would just have to take things on piece by piece.

He could do this himself. He could do this himself and save himself and rub it in everyone’s faces. 

The moon rose high into the sky as Peter swung around the city, itching for a fight. Maybe he could finally get some answers.

“Where is Venom when you need him?”

Peter was perched on his favorite Eagle statue overlooking the city. The brooklyn air chilled his lungs, but the adrenaline wamed him.

He didn’t have time to think about that now, as he was launched off of the building by a huge mass.

_ Venom _ .

They flew down to the ground, but Peter wasn’t about to let this end the same as last time.

“Howdy,” Spiderman choked out, Venom’s huge arms latched around his torso.This fucker was  _ strong _ . Peter didn’t remember him being this strong.

“ _ Did you misss ussss?” _

“How could I not?” Peter used all of his strength to loosen Venom’s grip as he slammed his head backward into his assailant’s skull. Venom shrieked and let go, suspending himself in a window he slammed into with his massive talons. Peter flicked out a web and caught himself inches above the street below. The symbiote locked on target like a crazed dog and began charging up the building to Spiderman, snarling.

“Hey now, let’s talk?” Venom only sped up. “Or not.”

Peter webbed across to a roof as Venom’s jaws nearly missed him. His large fists launched out, gripping at the agile spider. 

“Hey, buy me dinner first, big guy!” Peter sprinted from rooftop to rooftop, nearly losing a few limbs in the process. He leaped and bounded over the night sky until he locked eyes with a particularly disgusting alleyway. Peter was about to win this thing.  _ God _ he was brilliant.

“Hello, beautiful,” he chirped to himself. Peter turned around on the roof to face Venom before he saluted and backflipped into the brick alley below. Venom leapt for him in that instant, bushing Peter’s foot before crashing onto the adjacent rooftop. Peter’s graceful fall turned into a spiraling plummet and he crashed head first into a pile of garbage.  _ God _ Venom was fast. Was he that fast before? 

“Not cool, man,” he grunted, rubbing his head. It smelled like piss.  _ Oh nice _ , he thought as he looked over to a homeless guy peeing right next to him. The greasy man’s jaw was agape as he continued peeing about three feet away from the most famous hero in Brooklyn. 

Peter gave a weak finger gun. “How’s your night going?” 

The man continued peeing.

 “Cool, we’ll talk later,” he quipped as Venom dove into the alley after him. Peter pushed the homeless man to the other side of the street then he sprung through piles of wood and stacks of garbage. At the end of the alley, just before the other  side of the street, a stack of hearty metal and trash formed a narrow window. It was thick with garbage piled between large steel beams just big enough for someone Peter’s size to slide through. Convenient.

He dove through a hole as Venom crashed through the piles behind him. As the black blob pummeled through the layers of debris his shoulders caught and he smashed to a halt. He snarled in frustration, tongue and teeth flailing and snapping in front of Spiderman’s smiling mask. 

This was the first win he’d had in a while and boy did it feel  _ good _ to smirk like that.

“This might be an awkward question, but have you gained some weight?” Peter quipped, crouching casually just before the opposite end of the alley towards the street. “Because diabetes is a serious and growing problem in America. You should really join a gym.”

Venom writhed viciously from his pinned position, getting the attention of two drunk men walking past the alley behind Spiderman, Guinesses in hand.

“Whoa- hic, dude is that SpIDERman,,?” the taller one remarked.

“Bro… no way.,.!1!” The shorter one leaned back so much he might have fallen over.

Peter turned around and tipped his invisible hat. “Howdy pardners.”

“Dude that’s LITERALLY Spiderman dude,” Tall Bro said.

“Bro, I be knowing that, my guy. Who is his friend..?” Short Dude asked, maybe interested, but most likely just blasted. His voice morphed into a screeching whisper “Is he single,,,?”

“Dude, he’s kind of fat…”

“Spider- burp- man, does your friend know that diabetes is a-” Dude stumbled over his feet but caught himself on Bro, who himself was barely standing- “heh, that diabetes is a growing and serious problem in America?”

“Hey, that’s what I said!” Spiderman exclaimed, and Short Dude stumbled over to give Spiderman a high five.    


“Yeah man!” they both exclaimed in unison. Amazing. But then Short Dude stumbled a little too much and started crying as he gave Spiderman a huge hug. “You’re just such a- wahhh- inspiration my guy. I’d like die for you.”

“Whoa, okay there, champ.” Less amazing.

“I’ve just- sniff sniff- always looked up to you and I- sniff- would never want anything bad to happen to you.. Whaaaaaaa.” His speech broke off as his tears took over, sobbing. This grown ass twenty-something man was drunk off his ass, sobbing, in public, in the middle of the night, all over Spiderman. Peter had to admit, he was kind of flattered.

“Hey, there, there. Nothing bad can ever happen to me. I’m Spiderman!” he consoled, awkwardly patting his fan on the sweaty shoulder. He wondered how he could get snot out of his suit.

From behind the delicate scene, a hiss finally came from the shadows. “ _ I wouldn’t be so sure about that, Ssssspiderman!” _

Peter’s Spider-sense didn’t need to go off for him to know something bad was coming. If only he could pry this man off of him…

“ _ I’ll show you fat, boysssss.”  _ With that, Venom’s bulky form that stuck him under the pile suddenly and without warning  _ lost 200 lbs _ . The symbiote around it’s host shrank from a hulking armor to a catsuit, like one of those timelapses of the sponges that grow in water, but reverse. The rubble started to fall without the support, but Venom shot out from under the pile, wasting no time as he dove for Spiderman.

“Look out!” Peter barked as he threw Short Dude into Tall Bro, slamming them both against a trash can. He hope he didn’t give them a concussion. 

Peter quickly shot a web up to the roof, but was tackled into the street. Venom grew once more to his looming stature and pinned Spiderman’s chest with his claw the size of maybe a whole ass eagle. Weren’t they like 6 ft tall? Maybe smaller than an eagle. Maybe a big hawk. Vulture even. 

Venom’s fangs glinted in the streetlight as he grinned maniacally.

“Wow, Venom, you could really use some braces. Those are some gnarly chompers,” Peter grunted out, hands struggling to keep Venom’s palm off his throat.

Venom’s smile turned down. As he growled, his fist tightened around Peter’s chest. In a blur, he tossed Spiderman into a parked Lincoln Continental.

“C’mon man let's just talk about this,” Peter grunted out, spinning out of the way as Venom leaped after him, like a cat playing with a toy. Peters had was spinning. He knew he was losing, but he couldn’t quit now.

“You a big car guy?” he asked, but Venom punched a fist through the car door just after Peter dove out of the way.  _ Fuck _ Peter could use his Spider-sense right now. His reaction time is fast even without it, but he can feel his movements getting sloppier. He needed to finish this soon unless he wanted to be doppelganger food. This would be a great story to tell Wade.

Venom threw the door at his head, but Peter caught it with his web as he side-stepped and spun it back around to clock his assailant right in the teeth. Venom went down hard, head over feet.

“I guess not.” Peter shrugged and walked over to Venom, webbing his hands and feet to the asphault.  _ Fucking score. _ “So tell me.” Peter squatted next to Venom’s horror show of a face. “Who is under there that is so mad at me?”

“ _ You know ussss Ssssspiderman.” _

“I mean sure, I’d recognise that lisp anywhere.”

“ _ WE know you like gamesssss, but you played thisssss game with the wrong man.” _ Peter didn’t like the sound of that. “ _ Lean in closssse. You wouldn’t want to missss thissss.” _

“Ohhh, that’s so romantic! Tell me why you are attacking me and maybe I’ll let you buy me dinner.”

“ _ Sssspeaking of dinner,,, you’re the one who isssss toast.” _

_ “ _ Aw, man! That’s a really good one!” Peter shook his head. “And here I thought I was fighting some pea-brained alien with a bad temper. So what do you want? The city? The whole island? How big of an evil plan are we talking about here? Just want to be prepared for when you become our new evil ruler.” Peter webbed a wooden crate over to where he was standing and sat down.He hoped it looked like a power play to rest his head in his palm, and not seem as though he was close to a nap, tired and bruised. “I’m listening?”

“ _ Revenge,”  _ Venom drooled out, lips flaring up to a vile smirk as his tongue rolled out to smear saliva over his mouth. Venom's fist curled as a car’s headlights approached. Peter stood once again nonchalantly to tell the car about his roadblock, but just as he turned his back, his spider sense alerted him of something hurtling towards him. He ducked out of the way as a sewer grate came whizzing by his head. Venom had broken free and was stampeding towards Spiderman. 

_ Fuck _ .

The chase, unfortunately, was back on. Peter stumbled over his feet as he sped into a sprint. 

_ Fuckfuckfuckfuck. _

He leaped over parked cars and garbage heaps as he rounded a corner onto a usually busy street. In a lightbulb moment, Peter thought maybe he could lose him with the loud noise. Trucks honking at midnight is a pretty loud noise, or at least it seems that way when Peter is trying to sleep. 

Spiderman ducked as Venom launched a sewer grate at his head. He bounded across buildings into the intersection, only to find  _ not one car on the road _ . 

Thank you, Brooklyn. 

_ Fuck! _ Peter was slammed into the middle of the empty street, an immense pressure leaning into his chest. He could barely pull in a breath. Venom’s huge maw leaned closer and closer into him, his slithering tongue lapping around Peter’s masked jaw. 

Peter could've made  _ so many  _  smart comments, but he was a little too focussed on no being smushed into the core of the Earth.

“ _ Itsssy bitsssy Ssspiderman… Sssay hello,”  _ Venom hissed.  The army of teeth revealed themselves as Venom let out the most ragged chuckle Peter had ever heard. The symbiote’s facial structure began to undo itself, strands of alien matter sliding apart  to reveal a man underneath.

“B-Brock?!”

{Once again: the reporter guy}

[They got a whole cut scene about it]

{Just making sure. There are no pictures in this format}

[Just gay sex]

{...}

[Not right now]

His most recent nemesis was a _reporter_? Venom- or Edward  _ Brock _ more like - used his other massive hand to clap around Peter’s throat. 

“So you do remember me.” Brock smirked with fire in his eyes, enraged. “You’re gonna be ruined, little Spider. Do you know what it is like to have everything taken away from you?” Peter coughed weakly, still using all of his fading strength to pry this  _ thing’s _ hand off of his throat enough to breathe. “Don’t answer that. You’re about to know  _ exactly _ how it feels,” he continued, putting more and more pressure on the hero underneath him. Peter could feel his lungs inflating less and less as his already healing torso sent more and more pain through his body. His chest felt stuffed with cotton between his internal organs, smushing him into the ground.

_ This… is really not ideal. _ Peter thought, vision becoming spotty, body aching, legs pushing at the ground with all his might. Peter pondered what sort of bold last minute stunt he would like his body to magically perform to get out of this situation, because he can  _ always _ get up. He can  _ always _ win. He summoned up strength from deep inside himself and groaned as he slowly pryed Venom’s grip off of his throat and took a shallow breath, pushing himself to just  _ get Venom off get him off so you can breathe and win and be a badass like in the plan.  _

From a daze, Peter distantly hears Brock chuckle to himself. “Aw, now that is cute,” he jeers. Then Venom gains about a barrel of toxic waste’s worth of muscle mass.

“Oh fuck-” Peter rattled as Venom/Brock slammed him back down into the pavement, pushing his skull into the ground. Some vague part of Peter’s brain wondered if this is why there are so many potholes in New York. The other majority struggled to hold on to reality. This can’t be it. Peter had fought worse, he had  _ beat _ worse. 

“Do you have any last words, Spiderman?”

He didn’t know why this was happening, he didn’t know why he couldn’t use his spider-sense. 

“I have been waiting for this moment.”

He didn’t know why he couldn't just  _ do this _ and then  _ prove  _ to everyone that he wasn’t such a  _ fuckup _ . He was the  _ amazing  _ Spiderman.

Venom curled and rippled, using all of its strength. Maybe if Peter could just  _ hold on _ long enough for the Symbiote to get tired... 

His vision was blurring, he knew he would be unconscious soon. But he  _ knew _ the symbiote can’t keep this up forever, his sample got tired quickly during his trials.

Just as Peter’s vision verged on blackness, grip slipping, a horn sounded. Venom rippled and shifted. Peter arched his neck to peer behind him as Venom gazed up in the same direction.

Spiderman grinned under his mask.

 “See ya,” he gritted out as a Semi Truck Hauler plowed into Venom and passed over Peter in the road harmlessly.

[Fuck yeah]

Peter creaked to his feet. It wasn’t over yet. The semi skidded to a halt, breaks tilting the truck to block the whole intersection.

“Now  _ that _ was a close one.” He rubbed his throat and stood up.  _ Damn  _ he ached  _ everywhere _ . All of his muscles were screaming, but he told himself he had to keep going. It wasn’t over yet. 

“Here, VenomVenomVenom,” he called as if he was trying to find a lost cat. Peter hobbled a few meters closer to the truck, the driver of which exited as soon as the semi stopped and proceeded to run away with his arms flailing like some cartoon. “Brock, let’s just talk about this. What did I ever do to you?”

From behind the hauler, Peter heard,” _ You ruined ussss _ . You ruined me! I got fired over the Sin-Eater article! I was on my way to a promotion-” Peter saw the truck pushed to the side effortlessly as Venom appeared, half of Eddie’s face still peaking out. “It was more than just bills to pay. You made a  _ fool out of me _ . My wife thought so too. Everyone thought so. Was that your game?” He marched forward. Peter’s knees rattled. He hadn’t seen pure hatred for him in a while. Again, flattering. “ _ Did you just want to ruin usss…?” _

“No,” Peter took a wobbly step back. Cars were approaching now but quickly stopped just behind him. Great, there were  _ civilians _ now. “I never knew any of that, Brock. I swear.” A younger him would have just said “not my fault you wrote a shitty article and got fired” and swung a car at him. But his mind is wiser and body more twenty-something to be that reckless.

“ _ We have sssuffered. The pain… We hurt. Now you will feel pain!”  _ Venom shouted in what sounds like a million echoing voices, tendrils rising up from him in pure and unbridled  _ rage _ .

Venom catapulted towards him, vaulting at least ten feet in the air to dive down on the Spider. Peter readied himself, routing a map of points to web in his mind at what felt like the speed of sound. But speaking of sound- a high beep. Steady. Continuous. Loud. So loud in fact, Peter had to cover his ears, head screaming as his eardrums rattled. But even with Peter doubled over, head between his hands, he looked much better than Venom. He was coming apart at the seams, screaming and slithering like bolts of electricity off of Eddie. The symbiote struggled to hold on, and Eddie began yelling in anger and despair as he tried to scoop up the symbiote back onto himself frantically. He looked like an evil witch melting into goop, except the goop was shivering and the evil witch left behind a disgraced reporter instead of a skeleton. 

The noise stopped, but Spiderman’s vision went black, his body surrounded.

 

Darkness.  _Warmth._

 

When Peter opened his eyes, he felt like he was floating. He looked out and saw light at the end of a tunnel, almost like a TV screen into the real world. He felt ... safe. His body didn’t hurt anymore. In fact, he felt  _ stronger _ . Someone was yelling at him,  _ screaming _ at him.

“You have taken  _ EVERYTHING, _ ” the muffled voice said, and as Peter looked out at the world, he saw Edward Brock at his feet, screaming and clawing. 

Peter felt a surge of  _ rage _ .

_ We didn’t take anything from us. He made his own life hell, and now he is trying to do the same to us _ , Peter thought. He was not about to let anything else bad happen to him this week. Nothing bad could happen to either of them. 

He felt his foot move, muscles jerking with a rejuvenation Peter hadn’t known in a while. Mostly he thought a 4 hr nap and a few cups of coffee energized him enough, but  _ this _ was  _ power _ . They were ready to slam their foot into Edward Brock’s head. It would be easy. 

But something stopped them.

_ Them _ . 

In that moment Peter understood. 

“No,” he said. 

There was a pause. Then an overwhelming feeling of  _ betrayal _ that swept through him as the symbiote weakly slithered off of him, obviously preferring his original host.

Brock’s horrible yelling turned to some sort of demented laugh as Venom returned to him. Venom stood at his full height, peering down two feet taller than his red and blue doppelganger and grimaced foully. His eyes seemed to boil with rage, and now Peter couldn’t tell if that was Eddie or the symbiote.

Then they sprang off into the night, smashing cars in the now extensive line of traffic behind them.

“Jesus,” Peter spoke softly to himself. And just like that, it was over. He scuttled out of the way as cop cars rolled up and Brooklyn’s aggressive nature filled the driver’s mouths with expletives.

It took him longer than usual to make it to his apartment, taking a solid ten minutes to collect himself on a rooftop. He felt so…  _ flimsy _ after Venom had left. He was just ready to fall into a bed and hopefully heal whatever his muscles were telling him was wrong now. He was lucky his ribs stayed in tact. At least his research paid off. At least he learned  _ something _ about Venom tonight. Maybe even too much. 

Peter pried open his window after a half-hearted perimeter check, and slid into his home.

_ Fucking finally I can get some peace and quiet and-- Oh shit, what  _ now?

His Spider-sense went off like an adrenaline shot to his brain. The lamp in his small living-room flickered on.

“Well, well, well,  _ Tom _ . Sneaking into windows doesn’t look--” 

Wade's jaw dropped. They stared at each other. Wade in Peter’s favorite recliner stroking a pillow like some evil mad genius, and Peter fully-clad in his Spidersuit, looking like a fucking idiot.


End file.
